1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to the fields of packet processing, networking, and system on a chip.
2. Description of the Related Art
Networking of computer systems and other electronic devices has become more and more prevalent, at all levels of the network. Computer systems in offices, and sometimes even homes, are networked in local area networks (LANs). Geographically distant computer systems can be network in wide area networks (WANs). The Internet can be considered an example of a WAN.
Typically, systems on a network communicate with each other using packets. The packet includes a header and data. The header identifies the sending and receiving systems, and may include other information such as the length of the packet, a packet type, etc. Depending on the topology of the network, packets may need to be routed from the sending system to the receiving system. The routing generally involves one or more devices in the network examining the packet to identify its destination and transmitting the packet to another device until the packet arrives at the destination device. Additionally, packets may be examined during transmission to provide such features as quality of service (QoS), caching of information, etc. Accordingly, high performance packet processing is critical to the performance of the network as a whole.